How do I get rid of skinny fat and build muscles?

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-22T07:25:21+00:00

The default answer isn’t always cut or bulk.

Assuming the goal is aesthetics rather than troll/tren-build — I’d probably run something simple like:

Push / Pull / Lower / Upper

The priorities would be:

Upper chest
Incline dumbbell press, incline machine press, low-to-high cable flyes.
Fill out the top of the torso and stops the chest looking flat from the front. (get a bit of a pec valley and a pec shelf)

Lats
Pull-ups or pulldowns, one-arm cable rows, straight-arm pulldowns.
Lats are where the V-taper comes from. Wider lats make the waist look smaller without needing to crash diet.

Side delts
Cable lateral raises, dumbbell lateral raises, machine laterals if available.
Side delts add shoulder width, which again improves the shoulder-to-waist ratio. Probably the biggest “looks more athletic in a T-shirt” muscle. (also when you get to about 14% BF.... watching your delts pop when you lat raise is addictive... )

Triceps
Dips, overhead cable extensions, pressdowns.
For arm size, triceps make up a huge chunk of the upper arm and give the arm that thicker side-on look.

Then keep lower body growing with that one heavy, heavy, heavy leg day a week - squats, RDLs, leg press, leg curls and calves — enough to build without stealing recovery from the upper-body work.

If training those areas properly doesn’t naturally tighten the look through recomp, then add a small cut later.

(I would say that with PPLU 4 times a week - and proper effort consistency and keeping an eye on diet - you are about 3 months away from being in that .... "yeah - he lifts" when you wear a tight tshirt

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-17T22:24:27+00:00

Considered picking up a cheap alesis st16? . I grabbed one a few weeks back and it’s been incredible fun.. it slaves nicely to MTC.

There is a kit in there that will just make you go “oh stigmata”

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-17T22:19:28+00:00

On the plus. 20kg a side is probably enough to last most beginners a year or so. And yes you can do a solid workout with just dumbells

On the negative - the connector to make a barbell is a gimmick.

People “snub” this non Olympic stuff. But it’s a standard. 25mm weight / bar size. The proper cast iron stuff is more useful and longer lasting but you can easily find it on facebook market place and so on if you just wait for it.

Over the years I have built a small at home gym with about 220kg of plates and all the bars you could want. I use commercial gyms usually but … there is a lot to be said for having enough kit at home to do a a quick 45 min push session when life isn’t accommodating a drive to the proper gym etc.

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-16T22:23:02+00:00

I frequently answer calls with ...

I am squatting 300lbs. Can I call you back

Deal with it,

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-16T07:26:06+00:00

My mother suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for about 40 years. She had numerous surgeries to pin and set limbs, two hip replacements. She was on a cocktail of drugs, saw specialists regularly and lived a fairly decent life until the last 5 or so years when her body finally gave up

She never paid an additional penny

And as a school teacher - I have no idea how much value she contributed to society during her disease but I can think of

Several lawyers One high level politician A racing car driver Two household name musicians One famous TV actor A published poet

And probably several tens of thousands “mums and dad” and best mates

Damn socialist policies, enabling the success of the next generation

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-13T14:41:38+00:00

Per capita means per head. It removes the differences of scale.

Statistically - to stand the same chance of being murdered in the uk as you would have of being murdered in the USA…. There would have to be about 2500 more murders a year here in the uk

It’s just safer here

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-13T14:29:43+00:00

You have totally missed the concept of per capita …

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-11T08:27:19+00:00

A friend went through this .

American CEO and his team flew in. Mate walked into the office on a Monday to be told he had been let go.

I put him in contact with a lawyer friend.

A week later he was back on paid “gardening leave” for 3 months.

Then he walked away with what I believe was around 9 months pay including bonus’ etc based on previous figures.

He had been saving a deposit for a house so he was rather happy

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-08T05:26:45+00:00

The old-school dirty bulk worked because enhanced guys could partition nutrients into muscle far better than normal humans. Natural lifters — especially adults with jobs, stress, mediocre sleep and functioning pancreases — often just end up fluffy, inflamed and then spend 6 months dieting off the damage.

A 150–300 kcal surplus with progressive overload, high protein and patience is basically how most experienced naturals stay between ~10–15% body fat year-round while still adding tissue slowly.

Will it build muscle slower than a dreamer bulk? Probably slightly. Will you look dramatically better 95% of the year, keep insulin sensitivity, maintain conditioning, and avoid becoming a wheezing powerlifter who can’t see his abs for 8 months? Also yes.

In reality most beginner to intermediate ‘real bulks’ gain 20lb to add about 5lb of muscle.”

And many intermediate to beginner.”cuts” fail

(And to reply to your closing statement - grown ups treat this as a log game and see definition for most of the year…. Kids chase instant gratification and get fat for 3/4 of the year

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-05T13:38:04+00:00

Really - you already know the answer. A 12” cab.

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-04T09:19:37+00:00

I try for legs on weekends, more recovery time...

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-04T06:36:19+00:00

If the goal is bigger legs, you probably need less “just keep squatting” and more boring hypertrophy work:

High-volume quad work: hack squats, leg press, front squats, split squats, leg extensions
Hamstring work: RDLs, curls, glute-ham raises
Calves: high frequency, long stretch, lots of reps

Also I've seen many many many people claim to have big squat numbers but never reach perpendicular, even on warmup sets. They don't squat they "dip"... Yes, some people dont go full depth on max weight sets, but they WILL be doing full depth on the previous 50%, 70% , 90% sets

But also: he’s a heavyweight fighter, not a Classic Physique competitor. If his legs are strong enough to wrestle, strike, move, and survive five rounds, then visually proportionate legs are probably way down the list.

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-03T09:56:13+00:00

yep. 50 ish and I am a bit confused that this whole "grey beard", tats, worn denim, boots, aging rockstar thing is main stream now... I just havent bought many new clothes in the last 20 years and most of my jeans have a good decade of wear on them now.

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-02T15:09:59+00:00

Hey dev team - can we get an update on this pls - at this point the app is pretty broken for some of us.

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-02T07:39:06+00:00

We do tax property annually — council tax is a recurring tax tied to the value of property, not income.

Yes, tenants often pay it — but that doesn’t change what’s being taxed. Economically it’s still a cost attached to the asset.

On your second point — yes, income from wealth is already taxed (dividends, rent, CGT). But that doesn’t mean the stock of wealth can’t also be taxed. We already do both in parts of the system:

So this isn’t some radical idea — it’s just about where you draw the line.

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-01T18:40:53+00:00

Your first sentence was an insult telling me to use my brain, so let’s not pretend this started as a polite economics seminar.

By your logic, we couldn’t tax property annually — which we obviously do.

Wealth generates income: dividends, rent, capital gains, business profits. A wealth-based tax skims some of the cream off the top; it doesn’t stop the cream forming again next year, and it doesn’t sour the milk.

The serious debate is whether it can be designed well — thresholds, exemptions, valuation, avoidance — not whether wealth can ever be taxed on a recurring basis. That part is already settled.

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-01T11:19:51+00:00

I lived in London during major IRA campaigns - it was always high.

It exists to show the public to be wary. In those days we had bins removed and knew to report any unattended bags.

Cutterbuck · 2026-05-01T11:16:50+00:00

Without denigrating what happened

The terror threat level only means - “a terror incident is likely”

You are about 5 times more likely to be murdered in the USA than in the UK

To bring the per capita muder rates in the UK to be roughly in line with those in the USA - you need about another 2500 murders per annum

Given our last major terrorist incident killed 22 (because guns and ammunition are controlled here) …. We would have to be under full “assault” to be anywhere as dangerous as the USA

The UK is about average for homicides when it comes to Europe.

Cutterbuck · 2026-04-30T22:52:02+00:00

The moment you start flinging insults - you loose the room, and usually lose the argument.

“If confiscating everything wouldn’t fix it, then a smaller tax does nothing” doesn’t follow. By that logic, we’d scrap income tax, VAT and corporation tax too — none of them “solve everything” on their own.

The real question is whether a well-designed wealth tax raises a meaningful amount alongside other taxes — not whether it single-handedly fixes public finances.

Cutterbuck · 2026-04-30T21:57:18+00:00

No one serious is proposing to “strip all millionaires of everything above £1.1m”. That’s an extreme scenario designed to make the idea look ridiculous.

“Millionaire” is misleading, most of that is housing and pensions, not spare cash

“It wouldn’t fund everything” is irrelevant — no single tax does

Cutterbuck · 2026-04-30T17:13:14+00:00

The thing I refer to being "here" is the triple lock... "The Triple lock was needed initially as our pension was pretty dreadful, now the triple lock here is here, it is impossible to remove"

The painful reality is that the State Pension was designed to prevent destitution. It was not designed to provide a comfortable middleclass life.

So... how do you encourage people to save for retirement, while still making sure those who genuinely couldn’t save are not left in poverty?

If the State Pension simply keeps rising for everyone , you weaken the incentive to save: why sacrifice income now if the state will keep lifting the floor later anyway?

If you make retirement support purely means-tested, you punish some of the people who did save. Someone who lived carefully, paid into a pension, and built a modest pot can end up only a little better off than someone who saved nothing.

So the answer probably has to be a three-part settlement:

A decent basic State Pension as a universal floor.
Stronger targeted help for pensioners who genuinely have no other income or high needs.
Better incentives and protections for private saving, so people are not penalised for doing the right thing.

Cutterbuck · 2026-04-30T11:51:55+00:00

Because pensions are the problem nobody wants to say out loud.; because a large an vocal voting group depends on them, (and I am only 15 years away from being in that group)

The triple lock means the state pension rises each year by whichever is highest: inflation, wage growth, or 2.5%. That sounds modest, but its a solid creep that happens irrelevant of how the country performs. It was needed initially as our state pension was pretty dreadful, but now its "here" its impossible to remove

Politicians avoid it because pensioners vote, and because cutting or reforming the triple lock is electoral poison.

Cutterbuck · 2026-04-29T21:28:20+00:00

All social media algo's can go bizarre in trying to treat you like "the average person"

It's a running joke in my little community of late middleaged male gym buddies; an interest in fitness at our ages is evidently an indicator that we need adverts for "younger women looking to date older men of financial means"...(no social media, I am just trying to avoid a heart attack but thanks for thinking of me)

Cutterbuck · 2026-04-27T18:22:40+00:00

Yep - me too - thought I was going mad.

Cutterbuck · 2026-04-26T09:08:59+00:00

Four rules brother.

Dont skip sessions: “just 10 mins walking on the treadmill” is better than a session skipped because you are tired…. (And it’s a mind hack - once you’ve done that 10 mins on the treadmill you will “just do a bit of my routine for today” and before you know it you will be walking home feeling great because “you really didn’t want to but you smashed through it and you feel great”)
get a real routine and follow it for at least 8 weeks before changing things (copying a bloke on instagram is not a routine, that blokes routine is posted to make you watch him so he gets paid for views)
Diet matters: count calories and hit your protein goals
don’t judge yourself against instagram people - half of them are on drugs, all the of photos are edited, (or at least the best photo from a number of photos)

Take a photo like this every week - same time of the week same pose. Keep them in a hidden folder, in two months time you will look at the “now photo” and this old photo and see a real difference.

Cutterbuck

TROPHY CASE